Labor Day 1914 on the Nebraska prairie

"Why do you hafta go away tomorrow?" Jesse whined.

"I'm not far," big sister Lula said. "Just goin' to school, like Silas, George, and Sadie."

"Silas, George, an' Sadie come home ev'ry day."

"I'll be livin' with a family in town," Lula explained. "The mama died and the daddy needs someone to help with the little boys."

"You can help me."

Lula ruffled her little brother's hair. He would turn four in a couple weeks. "Want to play school?"

"School, yay! You be the teacher."

"Let's skip to school." The thirteen-year-old led a bouncy way around the soddy to a sandy spot in the shade. "You sit here. Now watch while I show you some shapes." With a stick, she drew in the sand. "What is that?"

"A circle."

"Right. And this?"

"A trangle."

"Tri-angle. How about this one?"

"A square standin' on its point."

"We call that a diamond. Now you draw one."

Jesse made a lop-sided copy.

"This is a very important shape. If you see a snake with a string of diamonds down its back, you keep far away." Lula sketched a repeating pattern.

The little boy made many diamonds in a row, too.

"Now it's story time. Five years ago, when Silas was only six, he found a diamondback rattler just up the side of that hill. He thought it was purty and stood there wavin' his hat at it while it shook its noisy rattle. Mama ran up and snatched him away so he didn't get bit." Lula drew a coiled snake with a bumpy rattle poking up.

"You ever get bit by a rattler?" Jesse asked.

"Nope. But George almost did. Last year he and Silas and me were walkin' home from school. George's shoes didn't fit. They were too big and his feet slipped and slid inside 'em. He was doin' this funny scamper down the track and not watchin' where he was goin'. He wasn't listenin' neither. Silas and me, we heard the rattle but couldn't see the snake. Then suddenly I saw it, right in George's path. I yelled 'Snake!' "

Jesse jumped at Lula's shout, then giggled.

"But instead of leaping away, he jumped toward the rattler. One shoe came off and hit the rattler first, before his foot came down on it. Good thing, too. The snake bit the shoe and not George's bare foot!"

"I don't got no shoes. I always got bare feet!"

"Except in winter. And you'll have shoes for goin' to school when you're old enough."

"But I'm old enough now, ain't I?"

"Nah, you got two more years before you start first grade. Now we'll do American history. Can you say 'South Carolina'?"

Jesse echoed the phrase.

"Once upon a time," Lula said, "the folks of South Carolina had a flag with a rattler picture painted on it, and the words, 'Don't Tread On Me.' "

"What does that mean?"

"Don't step on me or I'll bite!"

Jesse sprang to his feet, yelling "Don't don't don't you dare!" and stamped all over his snake drawing until it vanished in a cloud of dust.

"Must be time for recess," Lula muttered.

.

prompt: pattern

Did they have recess back in 1914? Must look that up...

Jesse recounted in his life story the two tales about rattler encounters: 6-year-old Silas waving his hat at one, and George's oversized-shoe encounter with one.  Also, see his tale set in 1909: "Soddy and Snake."

He added, "Our family of eight came to the hills and not one of us was ever bitten by a rattlesnake, even though most of us went barefoot. This was because of the warnings mother and father had given us time and time again."